Is Mumsnet shutting down GC views? FAO Justine Roberts

[Pluvia]

Mumsnet, are you aware that GC views are acceptable and are held by the vast majority of people in the UK?

Why are you using the 'not in the spirit of Mumsnet' argument to shut down discussions?

In the thread about a trans co-worker you allowed pro-trans arguments presumably from the US, Australia and Canada to mount up overnight. When GC women here in the UK countered with facts this morning you shut the thread down. I didn't see a single offensive post — unless you've changed policy and now think using the medical term autogynephilia is offensive.

This is not acceptable. Maya Forstater's case established that GC views are worthy of respect and yet you seem to be censoring open debate.

My post was about the thread where the OP was directed to avoid someone purely on the basis of their trans status, for no other reason.

Sorry Joly that was to the poster making the ridiculous attempt to weaponise racism in another country about 60 years ago to try and argue women into putting their own lives and needs and equality aside to enable men to walk all over them.

The OP did not say this at all actually. She had just met the person, and was speculating about her own discomfort if this were to be the case.

@suggestionsplease1

For clarity could you please explain what you are talking about if not employment law because I got lost somewhere

As a thought experiment let's say there are 3 levels of interaction with / between work colleagues

1. Unfriendly / hostile / harassing / behaviour which will make them too uncomfortable to be able to do their job efficiently or would want them to change jobs.

2. Professional and polite but distant. No additional personal chat or sharing or outside of work socialisation.

3. Work friends, regular social events and outings together, personal chats almost everyday.

I would see 2 as the default, and 3 as something it might be possible to build upto with someone.

Under UK law a company might be liable if was seen to be tolerating behaviour type 1 but without getting into taat (for a thread I never saw)

Are you suggesting that 3 is the normal standard which TW should expect and that woman are obliged to provide or else you would consider them as being discriminatory. If I'm not understanding you please do correct me, do I have that right?

Good point from OP!

Why should women be kind to people who are nasty to them?

Also: Why is Mumsnet not firmly on the women's side?

I don't believe that the customer is always right but to blatantly work against the rights of your customers even when the fact that women have more rights now is one of the reasons why Mumsnet can even exist is stupid.

Last time it happened I switched to other social media sites.

An analogy that would better suit your example of cognitive dissonance around race would be if someone entered your workplace via a scheme set up to promote underprivileged black candidates into certain typesof role or ocupation.The funding for this scheme was provided by a charitable trust set up by a life-long camapaigner on behalf of equal civil rights for black people.

You suspect that this person is not all that they present, and in fact is a privileged white person posing as a black person. in fact you know this is the case, in spite of them adopting a new 'africanised' name and wearing their hair in cornrows. Do you say anything, or do you let it pass?

I'm really not talking about this from a legal perspective.

I am saying that in general day to day life, avoidance of someone on the basis of a characteristic they have and not on the basis of anything they have said or done (as was the case on that thread) looks like phobia to a lot of people.

...and I gave an example of why cognitive dissonance and the inability to express that due to social censure, might be a good reason why someone might avoid that person.

Firstly, why would an employee even know about their colleagues mastectomy?
Breasts, or a lack of breasts aren’t relevant to any (legitimate) jobs that I can think of?

If the mastectomy is necessary due to say, cancer, while the person is employed at that workplace (and people know about it due to time off required) it would be covered by the ‘Disability’ characteristic, which isn’t defined by undergoing a process or proposing to undergo a process.

Breast feeding is covered by the Pregancy and Maternity characteristic but otherwise breasts aren’t relevant to EQ10

HTH!

This looks like a terrible analogy to me.

What privilege or advantage does a male person gain either by dressing as a woman, or by transitioning?

We know that these populations are subject to increased discrimination, stigma and hostility. We can see it live in action of FWR, indeed.

Even if they successfully 'passed' and everyone they met believed they were natal female, most people on FWR boards believe women face more discrimination and inequality than men, so they would be losing male privilege, wouldn't they?

What privilege or advantage does a male person gain either by dressing as a woman, or by transitioning?

didnt Philip/Pippa Bunce win an award in the City for best woman in finance one year? And he isn’t even trans 100% of the time, swaps about depending on mood. He took an award someone else should have won, an award which a woman could have been proud of, maybe looked good on her CV, etc.

Totally agree with this.

I don't want anyone wanting to be the opposite sex encouraged into major surgery to prove that they are serious. The idea of people making themselves infertile, incapable of orgasms and possibly needing lifelong medical care is appalling.

The whole of trans healthcare seems like a wild west situation, which can't be good for anyone.

Also feel very strongly that women's spaces - loos, hospital wards, prisons and domestic abuse support - are for biological women, full stop. Transpeople need the same as women, but not in a shared space.

They key difference on that thread was the suggestion of avoiding someone on the basis of a characteristic they had. Not on anything they had said or done.

When a person who is clearly one sex expects to be referred to by opposite sex pronouns (ie they expect me to collude with them in a lie), or if they want to use women's facilities, then they have revealed to me something about themselves — lack of respect for women, lack of boundaries and the expectation that I will deny biology — on which I will base a rational decision on whether to avoid or not. Avoiding someone is not discriminating against them.

I'm a lesbian. I've been in many work situations where people who didn't know until for some reason it came up in conversation who have then avoided me. At parties people chat freely with me, asked whether I'm here with my husband, blanch when I point out my wife and suddenly find that there's someone they urgently need to talk to in the kitchen. Not a problem, not discrimination. Uncomfortable, perhaps, for both parties but that's it.

If you aren’t talking about negotiating a workplace clash of rights, why is this relevant?

So what if it does look ‘like a phobia’?
People do not chose to have phobias.

A person with arachnophobia wouldn’t want to flatshare with a spider enthusiast.

A person with a fear of enclosed spaces will avoid a night out at an escape room.

Perhaps you are just prejudiced against people with phobias?

Indeed

I consider it perfectly reasonable, and a sensible act of self protection to minimise contact with people who want to use social pressure to force me to pretend I can’t tell what sex they are

I don’t enjoy the company of people who want to control me

It is an equivalent analogy, though, whether you like it or not. You were keen to bring in race in the first place.

A male person seeking access to female only spaces might be seeking internal validation, and to choose for themselves the right to access what they want - even though the space they have entered was in fact set up for another group for specific reasons due to power or other differentials.

In appropriating the identity of another group they seek the right to access what belongs to that group.

What you consistently fail to note is that the reason women have single sex spaces has nothing to do with lack of privilege - but is down to sex based differences ( which are instinctively perceived) of the type that make women more vulnerable. Single Sex spaces provide dignity and privacy for the female sex in certain types of intimate situation - situations which are to do with the female body and with female biology and its functions.

Because fascism.

Unfortunately you can't neatly divide "post-op" transwomen from fetishists. Some of the post-op transwomen are also people that you really don't want to have to share spaces with. I'd give you some examples but then my post would get deleted for naming names...

... though I think it might be safe to name J. Yaniv as one example? He had the operation and I hope everyone can agree that there is reason to think women and girls aren't entirely safe around that person.

(There is also the fact that some transwomen say they've had gender confirmation surgery when they mean breast implants or facial surgery. Even if you try to make that your boundary you will find that the boundary has been deliberately blurred.)

Crypofascist!

Please stop quoting meaningless disinformation personal opinions as if they were facts.
You are entitled to your anti- trans/ so called "gc" views.
You are not entitled to your own facts.

No one knows what the vast majority of women in the uk feel about this.

You don't speak for me or a single woman that I know.

It is in my and many many women's views that women's rights & trans rights pose no issue to the other -

Supporting trans rights does not mean opposing women's rights.

Supporting women's rights does not mean opposing trans rights.

Please think about whose interests it serves to turn those who should be allies against misogyny into each others' enemies instead.

YouGov polling.

Well for sure. I'm sure some white people in the southern states decades ago felt cognitive dissonance when they were expected to work alongside and be nice to black people, which went against every fibre of their being and their understanding of what was right in society.

Why should they have had to put themselves through that?

//

You don't see that in order for a trans person to live life absolutely as they please,
consequences can include -

Women and girls missing out on places in sports and recognition shortlists,

Women of faith unable to use single sex facilities, therefore leisure activities,

Children and young people being enthusiastically encouraged to take medically unnecessary drugs and removing healthy body parts to be replaced by pretend ones,

You really want to say being gender critical is like being a racist?

Do you mean pregnant and screwed - as I have to admit I see a need for them.

I was let go during pg - it's happened twice to my DSis - there are suppose to be laws against it but fighting it when it happens isn't always easy or straight forward or the best option. As a lone parent DSis needed to keep earning to keep a roof over her and her kids heads.

Then there's the mother track - again even mother's with SAHD or excellent support mother's can find themselves shoved on that by employers - though leaving for new employers is always an option.

I always thought pg - experience of maternity services - and employers attitudes were often another eye opening moment for many women.

I actually can't think of any mothers I've met who aren't GC when subject is broached - but perhaps that's because we are in a working class area and tend to mix with lower middle class/working class people who don't have the privilege of opting for single sex schools or private health care and can often see the issues very easily and are often very concern about impact on our children.

Women, mothers or not, who aren't gender critical are probably lost in the be kind bullshit.

My own teens have has worrying amount of indoctrination via schools and peers along the be kind lines - they have moments they see through it and moments when they apparently swallow double think ideas - to avoid alienating them its gentle questioning, exposing them to other ideas and hoping life open their eyes a bit more.

I definitely have a phobic type response at the idea of a male bodied person sharing mine and my daughters safe spaces, taking our places in sport and demanding access to womens peison wards and DV shelters.

A very strong, visceral response actually.

Anyone who questions this really should be looking in a mirror themselves